 Korea's shopping binge has stored up problems |
South Korea's biggest credit card firm lost $4.8bn(�2.6bn) in 2003, it said. LG Card has suffered the after-effects of the credit boom which left more than one in seven card payments overdue in December.
The government had backed the boom to help recovery from the 1997 currency crisis, but then tightened rules when debts started to spiral out of control.
As a result, LG almost went bust in 2003, evading bankruptcy only through a $4.5bn bailout by its creditors.
Unwanted record
The December bad debt figure was a record for South Korea, where card debt is worth 14% of gross domestic product.
LG Card's losses, of 5.6 trillion won, are also something of a record, beating recent poor performers such as chipmaker Hynix's 2001 slide to a 5.1 trillion won loss.
Most of LG's red ink derived from the final three months of the year, when it declared a loss of 4.6 trillion won on the back of charges for its delinquent debtors.
The company's total debt is 25 trillion won which will be swapped in part for shares, putting it in the hands of its creditors.
One-Minute World News 
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